Sunday 26th November

Red Squirrel 

True to my word, I headed for a walk around Castle Loch on Tuesday in lieu of Wednesday's cycling.  As soon as I got out of the car, I noticed a flock of goldeneye on the loch just out from the bowling club, making the sightings of the previous week seem less remarkable. Afterwards I started off by checking out the feeders for a willow tit.  There wasn't one as there was a lot of traffic from other tit family members but I did see a tree sparrow moving around.  I would have got a shot of it as well but this little fellow (right) decided to come along and give a gymnastics display on the same feeder, which of course put everything else off.

Further round the east side of the loch there was this rather conspicuous example of fungal growth (left) that seems to have affected a number of the silver birches, though this was the most conspicuous example. I've no idea what it was.

Unfortunately the weather closed in just as I arrived at the castle and the rest of the walk was a bit of a yomp to get back to the car.  Impressively, it is now possible to walk right round the loch without going on the road except for a very short stretch past the ugly rich houses where the petrol station used to be.

Siskins

As Sunday tennis doesn't seem to be happening any more, I decided to try the same trick today and headed for Castle Loch again.  Unfortunately someone had forgotten to fill the feeders so I decided to head for Eskrigg Nature Reserve, thinking that might be the best alternative for a tree sparrow at least.

Once there of course no willow tit or tree sparrow appeared but I did get nice photos of siskins and goldfinches AND I was particularly pleased to get a not very good one of a treecreeper - not easy as it was constantly on the move. One of the goldfinches seemed to have particularly disinctive black and white rump markings, or maybe it's just a feature of the bird I hadn't noticed before?  The one I didn't get on camera today was the nuthatch, but I've had pictures of them before...

There were also a few red squirrels gamboling around and a lady trying to feed them right in front of her so she could get a close up. One red ran past me, went into her target zone and turned its back on her.

Goldfinch

Treecreeper